The Phalanx was not a rigid formation- the way Phillip and Alexander organized them. But the Successor States aparently did not fully grasp the potential and definently undertrained their men in anything other than a rugby scrum streight ahead. The pikes also seem to have gotten longer. An eqivilant to 16 English feet, including head, was wieldable farely easily, reenactors of 16th and 17th century European pikemen can tell. But in the Successor states you hear of pikes that would be the equivilant of up to 21 English feet long. These would be barely controlable in a straight ahead push, and it seems that was their purpose, to crash through by just having greater reach than all enemies.<br>
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All of which ment that the syntagama became less mobile and more likely to break up over terrain or if asked to move rapidly over a distance, which the legionares could then exploit. The pila was also a way of outreaching the pike, while the pikes themselves provided some protection from a overhead shower of missiles, a running cast launched from just beyond pike range at low angle would have been very effective against the front rankers. Slipping between their lowered points and the angled points held over their heads. In Philip and Alexanders time, peltasts and archers helped screen them from this. From the results it seems that the Epriots also understood the combination, though that didn't keep them from getting mauled in the process.<br>
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The cohort was kind of like the Syntagama. I have a idea that it partially replaced the manipular ordos because they took less time to deploy into a useable combat formation and were individually better able to protect themselves if they were intercepted while deploying.<br>
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Once they were IN line the maniples were not that vulnerable to people shooting the gaps, because there were very few armies with a combat formation smaller then the front of a maniple. Although Bruggman on his webside showed with his time/speed/distance studies that it could take a while for a posterior century to get up alongside the prior century, there were shortcuts. A maniple could just uncover its prior century, forming a "sawtooth" line, which would quickly level itself out once contact was made. <p></p><i></i>
